LAST UPDATED
2-28-10

OVERVIEW
- Hunters in DC
- Key Characters
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RESTRICTIONS
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CREATING A H:tR CHARACTER
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BOOKS IN USE
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HUNTER THEMED MEDIA
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LINKS TO HUNTER RELATED WEB SITES
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Hunter: the Vigil

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster; 

and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you." 

-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

OVERVIEW:

From the White Wolf Hunter Wiki:

Hunters operate socially, in collectives and groups of various sizes. The smallest organizational unit in which hunters operate is the cell. Cells operate independently of one another, frequently without even being aware of the existence of other cells in the region. Individual cells make up for their lack of firepower with flexibility and local knowledge.

Characters affiliations are categorized into 3 tiers:

• First-tier Characters (individuals who for various reasons do not affiliate with any organization other than their Cell)
• Second-tier Characters (individuals who belong to Compacts, small and loosely connected organizations)
• Third-tier Characters (individuals who belong to Conspiracies, large global groups that command greater power and resources)

Cells occasionally discover one another and band together for strength and mutual support. When multiple cells get together in a region, the organization often acquires an independent identity, a group structure known as a compact.

Frequently, a compact forms out of a sense of cultural identity or shared purpose: The Long Night, for instance, comprises mostly fundamentalist Christians, whereas the compact known as Null Mysteriis draws its membership from the ranks of scientists and medical personnel who have been exposed to supernatural phenomena, and seek to strip it of all the superstitious hocus pocus surrounding it to find rational explanations for the irrational wherever possible.

Compacts can extend their reach to encompass large geographical regions, and even become global in scope through the medium of the internet if the compacts are particularly net savvy. Compacts sacrifice some of their flexibility for backup from other cells within the compact.

Compacts examples from Core Book:

• The Long Night – Christian hunters trying to destroy monster to facilitate the second coming of Christ.
• Null Mysteriis – A group that seeks to scientifically study the paranormal.
• Network Zero – A group trying to expose the supernatural world to the public via the use of media sites such as YouTube.
• The Union – Consists of regular folks mostly trying to protect their neighborhood from oppression of any kind (humans or monsters).
• The Ashwood Abbey – Thrill seekers who want to experience everything involving the supernatural from the most benign to the most psychotic (torture, mutilation, and worse).
• The Loyalists of Thule – Guilt-driven knowledge seekers who use what they learn to help the world after their assistance in creating the Nazi Party.

Sometimes, a compact becomes something else: a truly global organization, with access to Endowments - powerful devices or other powers whose use blurs the line between the hunters and their prey. Conspiracies sacrifice flexibility for access to serious backup and firepower, including their Endowments. Some conspiracies date back thousands of years; others are relatively modern.

Conspiracies examples from Core Book:

• Task Force: VALKYRIE ("The Men in Black") – Founded after the "real" death of Abraham Lincoln, using high-tech weaponry to protect the public and keep them from knowing things they do not want to know.
• The Lucifuge – Children of Satan, who use their infernal powers to hunt monsters.
• The Cheiron Group – Group of international corporations who experiment on monsters in order to find cures for modern diseases such as cancer and HIV, and attaching parts of monsters to their field agents.
• Aegis Kai Doru (Greek for "Shield & Spear") – Empowered by ancient relics and bound by a vow to destroy both werewolves and mages for an ancient grudge.
• Ascending Ones – Ancient Egyptian cult turned Islamic hunters, they are well known for their use of drugs to help aid their monster hunting.
• Malleus Maleficarum – Secret enforcers of the Catholic Church, based on the heretical book from the Inquisition and specialize in vampire hunting.

Hunter: The Vigil is a game about those humans who have come, by some means, to recognize the truth that monsters exist. These individuals cannot sit idly by. They must study their foes. They must destroy them or steal their power. They must use them as pawns against one another. It’s not an easy thing, the endless hunt, the ceaseless Vigil. It is a thing of brutality and obsession, a slope slippery with the blood of those who came and fell before, a slope that descends into nightmare. And yet they can do no differently, because the Vigil drives them. They sacrifice. They push forward. They hunt.

RPG.net Review of Hunter:

Individual hunters are organized into a cell, a small group of pseudo-anonymous folk that work together within a small region to take down the baddies. Some individual hunters (or cells) belong to Compacts, which are larger organizations of hunters with a similar worldview. Fewer hunters belong to Conspiracies, which are national or global organizations of hunters bearing immense resources and power.

The core villain group for Hunter is basically the entire World of Darkness. Vampires, Werewolves, and Mages along with cultists, serial killers, and anything else you can think of are all fair game. The book does include a nice, simple power system to enable the Storyteller to build an antagonist without access to any other book.

With so many dangerous foes hunters need every advantage they can get. Let’s examine the mechanical advantages granted to hunters. First and foremost, hunters are built just like regular mortals in the World of Darkness corebook. A character may have a four in one stat, but 2s and 3s rule the day. A hunter may be able to charge in with a shotgun and do some serious damage, but at the end of the day many of them are just as vulnerable to a vampire’s bite as anyone else. The focus is on planning and Tactics.

Tactics are a new addition to hunter, and a solidly implemented one. Entire cells learn Tactics by spending experience points and practicing the Tactic together. Mechanically each Tactic has set Attribute and Skill requirements to pull it off and a minimum number of people.

More on what Hunter is at the White Wolf Hunter page.

The Washington, DC Hunter Setting:

TBA

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Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who watches the watchmen?) 

- Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347-348

RESTRICTIONS: 

Restrictions are things that are legal by the book but for game balance or other reasons, the STs want more strict control over how much it is in play in this game. The below are not allowed. Forbidden means not ever; restricted means we have in the past or we may in the future but not now.

JAN 2010: For now, Hunter is a closed genre, but will be supported in the future as we are able to accommodate it into our chronicle.

• Any current mortal PCs cannot convert to Hunters unless there has been IC RP to warrant such a drastic act. More to come as rules and spoilers are published.

• All Hunter PCs, when it opens, will be permanently Restricted to ST Approval only, similar to Promethean. There can only be a certain number of Hunters in the Chronicle at a given time or the game becomes unbalanced. 

RESTRICTED BACKGROUNDS:

Hunters with Law Enforcement, Federal Agent or Military Employment (or anything related that might want an IC Background Check).

"Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner."  

-- Anne Rice

MAKING A H:tV CHARACTER:

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

Using the Template that you can download HERE:

1. Name: Put the name of your character. Make sure it is not on the Blocked Names List.

2. Player: Put your name (and preferably also your email address).

3. Chronicle: Put "Washington DC By Night." (or DC By Night or 11th Hour)

4. Concept: This is open-ended, but you can see examples on pg. 34 of WW55002.

Concepts are usually a 1-3 word root-level label for who your character is at the core as a person (not in a supernatural sense), usually succinctly matching their personality and their function.

Examples might be: Ambitious Journalist, Angry Young Man, Drifter, Intellectual, Lost Waif, Party Animal, Politician, Misguided Prophet, Radical Politician, Socialite. These are stereotypes, and needn't be literal; details would be covered in your background.  

Example Concepts (1.0 version but still helpful):

http://www.virtualsolarsystem.com/venus/ladynightspirit/Concept.htm

8. Hunter stuff TBA

9. Hunter stuff TBA

10. ATTRIBUTES

**NB: For Attributes, Skills and Merits, there is no longer a 3 pt. max cap for stats in the "initial stage" (since there is no freebies stage in 2.0).

However, if you buy 5 dots of anything in Attributes, Skills or Merits at Creation, the 5th Dot costs 2 points, not 1. (See left side pg. 34, WW55002 for more details.)

Attributes are broken down into Mental, Physical and Social, but also across the other way, into Power, Finesse and Resistance. (See pg. 47, WW55002 for details.)

Starting dots for Attributes are 5/4/3.

11. SKILLS (Mental/Physical/Social): You will have 11/7/4 starting dots (+3 Specialties).

(See pg. 53, WW55002 for more info.) Mental skills you don't have dots in will cost -3 to your dice pool for a roll using that stat. Physical & Social are -1 for unskilled.

• Mental Skills: Academics, Computer, Crafts, Investigation, Medicine, Occult, Politics & Science.

• Physical Skills: Athletics, Brawl, Drive, Firearms, Larceny, Stealth, Survival & Weaponry.

• Social Skills: Animal Ken, Empathy, Expression, Intimidation, Persuasion, Socialize, Streetwise & Subterfuge.

12. MERITS (7 starting points) -- See pg. 34 (list) and pg. 108 (explanations) in WW55002

13. FLAWS

In WOD 2.0, flaws do not actually cost points, and are included more for optional character balance.

You DO get extra experience (*as the ST subjectively deems earned) for playing your flaws well in RP.

WHO IS HUNTER ST?:  Caleb_Brown (Mark) or Hera (Nys)

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"Morals - all correct moral rules - derive from the instinct to survive; moral behavior is survival above the individual level - as in the father dying to save his children."

 

"Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive [...] Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politics - you name it - is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what Man is - not what do-gooders and well-meaning Aunt Nellies would want him to be."

 

 -- Major Reid, Moral Philosopher, 7000 A.D.
Robert A. Heinlein's "Starship Troopers", 1959

HUNTER SOURCEBOOKS IN USE:

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"Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be creamed?"

-- Solomon Short

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"Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind, it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate -- and quickly."

 -- from "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long" by Robert Heinlein

HUNTER THEMED MEDIA:

BOOKS: "The Watchmen" by Alan Moore (DC Comics), "Dracula" by Bram Stoker [Van Helsing], "It" by Stephen King, The "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter" Series by Laurell K. Hamilton, Hellsing (Manga), Swan Song by Robert McCammon

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LINKS TO HUNTER RELATED WEB SITES:

Eternal Grace Congregation Church (FICTITIOUS, but amusing. There is no #3601 on Calusa Club Dr. in Miami, and their phone # is a 555 exchange ): http://www.father-ramos.com/

From the Authors of Hunter: http://www.flamesrising.com/hunter-author-quotes/ 

Hunter: the Vigil LiveJournal Community: http://community.livejournal.com/hunterthevigil/ 

Loyalists of Thule Review: http://www.flamesrising.com/hunter-thule/ 

Mr. Gone's HtV Character Sheets (not useable in our game, reference only: http://mrgone.rocksolidshells.com/htv.html

White Wolf's official Hunter Page: http://www.white-wolf.com/hunter/index.php?line=news&articleid=939 

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All Gaming Sourcebooks & Materials for this campaign are © 2004 - 2010 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.